BackgroundWomen have been assuming more responsibilities and higher positions in major companies, which exposes them to high levels of stress. Higher perceived work stress is related to higher emotional reactivity. Difficulties with emotional regulation can lead to anxiety and mood disorders, which are more prevalent in women than men. Indeed, women leaders are more likely to experience emotional fatigue than men due to excessive empathy. Our aim was to evaluate the associations between self-compassion (SC) scores to depression symptoms, perceived stress and mindfulness, as well as with brain responses to high-arousal unpleasant and pleasant pictures from the International Affective Picture System (IAPS), as measured through functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) in women managers.MethodsForty-six participants were selected for the study. All participants filled the Self Compassion Scale (SCS), Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), Mindful Awareness Attention Scale (MAAS) and the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS). After that they were scanned during an fMRI affective response paradigm. Correlation analysis were performed among these variables.ResultsOur data suggest that women with higher SC scores respond to affective stimuli with higher activation of the precuneus (a brain region related to self-referential processing), lower levels of stress and depression and show greater attention in everyday activities.ConclusionSC may be an important characteristic for women leaders because of its association with higher sensitivity to emotional stimuli and mindfulness. These skills may allow them to be more aware of others while being less susceptible for stress and depression symptoms.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1186/s12905-018-0685-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

The aims of the current study were to examine differences in brain responses to cognitive control in stressed and non-stressed women managers. Stress complaints are highly prevalent among active workers and play an important role in women managers mental health and cognitive functioning. Psychosocial stress has been associated with differential executive functions in this population, but little is known about the neural correlates underlying such differences. We examined brain responses of a particular group of workers that has been proposed to have a different response to stress as a function of their status (i.e., managers). Stressed (n = 19) and non-stressed women managers (n = 21) were scanned using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during the performance of a cognitively demanding task. We used the Stroop color-word task to compare neural activation associated with the suppression of a predominant response tendency (i.e., word reading) and the initiation of an appropriate behavior alternative (i.e., naming word color). Despite similar behavioral performances, stressed managers exhibited increased activation in the occipital cortex during response inhibition. No regions were more activated in the non-stressed relative to the stressed group. This finding of greater activation has been interpreted as compensatory brain response to maintain performance in front of cognitive challenge.